Continuing to Move Back in Time When Kiera meets Kiera
by LocutusTNG
Summary: WARNING: This takes place directly after the end of season 2, and references and uses some of those events. It is a story that picks up where the season finale ends and what may have happened. Chapter 27 wraps up this story line, but a whole new story will pick up where this left off.
1. Fighting for Freedom

After being incarcerated for weeks in the same small cell, time is starting to slow down. Captivity has been brutal. The cell that I am in is smaller than a prison cell with less amenities than a prison cell. There is only a blanket to sleep with on the ground and a bucket for a bathroom. There is no hiding from anyone, the walls are clear on all sides. There are no opening but for a tiny vent high above your cell. These cells have no mechanisms to exploit, so there is little need to make an effort to escape. You are given food and water just once a day. Although to call it food is being considerate. There is only hopelessness here, my captors are in control and I have nothing to bargain with or to bargain for since I do not know what their intent truly is.

The only thing that breaks the monotony are the constant interrogations that I am put through every few hours. It is always different people, but they keep asking the same questions. They want to know about my future, but I will not further corrupt the future by divulging anything.

As time goes by I wonder if I have given any potentially harmful information away to my captors. Our captivity and constant interrogations are obviously meant to break down our mental strength. I try and resist, but they control every aspect of my life. Your anxiety and paranoia is heightened in this environment. My only hope is that there is eventually a lapse in their security or a flaw and that I will still be able to use it if the occasion ever arises.

The captives in the nearby cells are slowly dwindling. What has happened to them? Where have they gone? Will their fate be my fate? There has to be some way out or here. Someway to escape and still save the future. I am getting very anxious that what may have happened to the other may soon be my fate.

Having just fell asleep not that log ago, I am roused by a whiff of air passing over my face. As I turn my face towards the direction of the air, I notice there is the slightest space between the door seal. At that moment I realize that the door must not have been sealed correctly. I look around carefully to see if anyone is moving in the room, the paranoia that has built up in me questions whether this is a trick. Are they trying to give some false hope to only step in and snatch it away. After waiting a few moments and I am sure that no one is moving and none of our captors are present, I gather all of my strength, stand-up and push the door open.

The door gives way when my hand touches it. Before I can even think I start moving forward and am looking for a way out of the room. There is only one exit so I quickly move towards it. Not noticing any security measures on the door, I gently try turning the knob. It leads me to a long hallways full of rooms. I don't know if it's the way out, but it's too open here, I need to find a place to hide. I turn to my right and try every door until I encounter one that isn't locked. I hear someone coming down the hallway in the distance and I panic and move quicker try to find an open door. At last I find an unlocked door and I quickly duck in and close the door before I can be noticed. It is dark inside. I don't have time to sit and wait for something to happen, I need to keep moving as soon as possible and try to get out of this building.

I fumble around the walls till I find a light switch. I am in some sort of storage room. There are shelves of bins with names on them. I quickly scan the labels till I run past a box with "Cameron, Kiera 00013" emblazoned on the front. I take the box off the shelf and inside is everything I was wearing the day I was imprisoned.

I remove the red pants and red pullover shirt that I was provided when they took my suit and gear. They were very thin and did not provide warmth or comfort anyway. I am left standing I my white sports bra and white panties.

The bra and panties bring back fond memories of my past life. A gift from my husband. A husband that I am unsure is still there anymore. He always knew what I looked amazing in and yet still fit and felt so great on my skin. I waste no time and quickly slide into my suit which surprisingly still has some power and holster my gun.

I check the diagnostics of my suit. There is not enough power to be effective in combat till it is recharged. So I need to figure a way out while avoiding any lengthy confrontation. I slowly open the door to the hallway to hear if anyone is outside. After a few moments I decide that no one is there and I start to quickly move down further down the hallway. I am looking for an exit out of the building. After moving for what seems to be halfway down the length of the floor, I hear a sound again and I start to panic and start grabbing at doorknobs looking for an unlocked door. It is too late to turn around and get back to the storage room I was in. Just as I am just about to be discovered I see a larger doorway and bolt for it. It is an elevator.

I push the buttons several times, but nothing seems to be happening.

Someone down the hallway yells "Halt! Identify yourself!"

As I hear steps hurriedly move towards me, I am running out of time and I don't know if I have the strength to fight someone in hand to hand combat without my suit, so I am looking for a way out, when suddenly the elevator doors slide open. It is empty and I am relieved. I quickly move into the elevator and let the doors close. I try hitting all the buttons but none of them will light up. I'm afraid I have just been trapped in another prison cell.

Suddenly the elevator starts moving upward. Having passed a few floors after I got in the elevator and an alarm starts blaring. The elevator stops and the doors open. I expect a confrontation with several guards, but there is only one. I take a risk and try to shock him with my suit. The suit emits a charge, it stuns him for a but a moment. It is enough to knock him down and I rush past him. As I look into the hallway, there is only one door at the very end. I take off towards the door. As I run towards the door I can hear the guard getting back onto his feet. I hear more footsteps approaching too.

Voices approaching from behind me start yelling "Stop" and "Drop to the ground", but I have no intent to give up now. After getting this far, I have to get out or at least let someone know where I am.

As I enter the room I see a sphere similar to the one that transported me to this time. The room is full of electronic equipment that I do not have time to study or understand. I lock the door, but that will likely only give me precious seconds as the guards likely have keys to this room.

This may be the same sphere that transported me to 2012 but I am not certain. I have little time to think and to look at what my captors may be doing with this device. It is currently powered up and ready to be activated for some reason. Just then the door swings open behind me and many guards flood into the room.

There is no more time. I try pushing some buttons on the control panel and an event horizon forms around the sphere. As the guards come forward I dive towards the event horizon. There is bright flash of light and what seem like an explosion and then there is nothing.


	2. Dropping through Time

It was so sudden what happened to me in that one brief moment. There was a flash of blinding light and what felt like static electricity all around me, and then I felt nothing. I felt like time had stood still and there was nothing around me. I less than a second I was in a room with a transport sphere, then in an empty space, and then not an empty space.

After some time I realized that the nothingness was here and now. I tried to take in a breath, it was water.

Where am I? Is this just another interrogation session? Had I passed out? I attempt to recall how I arrived here, but my head is ringing. After what seems like minutes, but is likely but moments, it all comes crashing back to me in a shockwave of light, emotions, and pain.

After the flash, I was floating for a moment several stories up when I appeared here which was only a lake and no building. But the moment is fleeting and gravity takes hold. I fell from a great height and was knocked out when I hit the surface of the water. I already started sinking underneath to what felt like a watery grave. I was sinking down into the water, but I could not get myself to go upwards. There was no air left in my lungs. I had no strength left and was fighting against the weight of the garments I was wearing.

So I slipped out of the suit, the boots, and dropped all the gear as quickly as I could. After dropping all the dead weight, it felt like I would be able to push upwards. The lack of air was starting to burn my lungs and there was little time till I passed out and would most likely drown.

I kicked with all my remaining will and strength and started ascending. As I broke the water's surface, I spit and coughed up water that had started to fill my lungs to make room for air. I was down there for a long time and my lung's ached as if I was being sat on. As I flailed around trying to catch my breath, I tried looking in every direction to find something to grab hold of, but there was nothing; however, a shoreline was visible in one direction so I made my way towards the shore.

As I dragged myself to the water's edge, I realized the seriousness of my situation. It was a cool day with a light breeze blowing across the water.

As tried to lift myself out of the water, i lost my balance and dropped to my knees. I stumbled up a second time and managed to stay upright albeit a little wobbly. As I stood up in the breeze the cool wind blew across my dripping wet exposed skin. A sensation came across me as that of an electric shock. My body tensed up, my nipples hardened, and goose bumps raised up all over my body. The coldness was becoming excruciating, but I had no cover, no clothes but for my wet underwear, and no heat.

It was starting to get dark and I needed to do something if was to survive. Then I smelled something that smelled like something was being burned. As I tried to scan further away with my weary eyes, I saw what looked like a few houses off in the distance and headed in that direction.

As I stumbled my towards the building, the cold is agonizing. The dampness of my skin is taking all the heat from my body and with each step I am losing sensation in my extremities. The distance does not seem to be changing but I push my body forward. After pushing my aching body onwards, I make out what looks like sheets blowing on a clothesline near one of the structures. I continue the slow march toward the blowing sheets.

As I near the building, I see a dark figure moving around the sheets. The sheets seem to be disappearing. The figure must be taking down laundry. I raise my hand up and yell for help, but the words don't come out, and my strength leaves me and I pass out.

As consciousness comes back to be, I feel the sensation of being dragged across the ground. After a short period of time a tall figure in a hooded jacket leans downs and grabs my arms and pulls me up. Long wavy golden hair falls from the hood and into my face. A sweet smell of lavender and lilacs fills my nose as I am lugged up and my right arm is heaved over the shoulder of the hooded person. I am guided through a doorway and into a room where the scent of burning wood is overwhelming. The figure places me on a blanket in front of the fireplace. I have lost all feeling to my extremities and have no control over my body.

After a few moments the figure comes back in and is standing over me. As my eyes look up to see my Samaritan, I see my face however with a few more years to it.

The person says "Hello, my name is Kiera, and I am just trying to help. You are suffering from hypothermia and I need to get your body warmed up quickly" She reaches down and pulls my damp sports bra up over my head and then pulls off my damp panties. Removing the last remaining damp garments from my body helps and she uses a soft towel and gently wipes my body dry.

She sits down on the blanket and pulls me up in a seated position between her legs. She wraps a warm blanket around my naked body. As my body starts to warm and feeling returns to my hands and legs, the pain subsides. As the pain gives way, the exhaustion to fight and stay alive catches up and I fall asleep in her arms.

I let sleep take me, as I feel safe and secure for the first time in weeks, in the arms of my guardian angel Kiera.


	3. A New Day

How long have I been asleep? Where am I?

As I awaken, I feel better than I have in weeks. Being kept awake and barely sleeping for weeks has taken its toll on my mind. I question what my mind is seeing and if it is real. Can any of this be real or is it a fantasy? I vaguely remember seeing someone who looked like myself dragging me into a house. That can't be possible. As I open my eyes, daylight streams in from a large window overlooking the bed. The light is illuminating a dresser across from the bed. It looks to be hand-crafted from possibly oak. There is a large oval mirror mounted above the dresser. There looks to be a hairbrush or two sitting atop the dresser and possibly some make-up but it is hard to make out at this angle.

I try to lift up my head and the pain is excruciating. I try moving my right hand up to my face and the muscles in my arms scream out in pain and I stop moving my arm. I try and recall how I arrived in my current predicament. Then I recall appearing at a great height above a lake after touching the activated sphere, I am sure I should be dead from the fall. The force exerted on my body should have crushed my internal organs when I hit the water's surface. My suit must have had just enough residual energy left to absorb enough of the kinetic energy to keep me alive, but just barely it seems.

I attempt to examine my surrounding a little more without moving around too much at the moment. When I was brought into this house and was placed in front of a fireplace at least I think I was. My memories are very fuzzy after getting to the water's edge. Everything after that was a blur, I was running on survival instinct and nothing else.

I am in a foreign bed, there is large ornate wooden frame at my feet. There is a large fluffy comforter on top of me with very soft cotton sheets underneath that are amazingly soft on my skin. I feel every piece of the fabric on my skin as my skin is so tender and sensitive from the extensive bruising. At that moment I realize I am naked under the sheets as the sheets rub back and forth across my exposed nipples and my exposed skin. It feels so tender and comforting from the cold environs of the cell that I escaped from earlier.

I see a doorway to my left and door has been left ajar. There are a painted portraits hanging within view on the wall. They look like someone painted a landscape, possibly of where I am presently. To the right of the dresser is a large wooden chair in a corner of the room with a pile of clothes sitting atop. I decide I will make it to the chair and to the clothes. I slide my feet to the edge of the bed, and feet and my body scream in pain but I press forward. I try to pull the blanket up over my body as I try to raise up my body but the sheets are too heavy for me so forgo modesty and push my naked body up.

The victory is short-lived as my feet give out from under me and I go down hitting the bare wooden floor with a hard thud. I scream out in agony, some sound comes out but not as loud as I would have thought. I am much weaker than I imagined. Someone quickly rushes into the room, she says "You should have called for help." She gets down on the ground and puts both of her arms under my arms and lifts my naked body back onto the edge of the bed.

Now in the bright light, I have a much better view of the person in front of me. The long golden hair I recall is hidden mostly within a red towel wrapped around the top of her head. She wearing nothing more than a sheer black lace bra with what looks to be black cotton panties. She must have been in a nearby bathroom when I fell to the floor. The same intoxicating smell of lavender and lilacs can be smelt emanating from her body. She has a slender well-toned body, but I am still drawn to her face. I looks so eerily similar to my own and I am sure she said her name was Kiera when she rescued me and brought me into this house.

I ask her in a hoarse voice who she is and where we were and she says "We can talk about that later." She asks whether I was trying to reach the chair to which I say "Yes", however after seeing her body so clean and smell so intoxicating I whisper to her as to whether a hot bath is possible.

She says the bath is still drawn and fresh and she will help me to it. She sits down next to me and puts her arm under my right arm and helps me off the bed. My body aches and my muscles scream in pain at the movement but she helps me around the bed and guides me out into the hallway. My body has started tingling as the cooler air in the room has hit my unclothed body, but as we entered the hallway it was slightly warmer, I assumed that the fire I was sat in front of was still burning somewhere else within the house and thus the warmer hallway.

We just had entered the hallway and just as quickly departed as the bath was directly adjacent to the room I was sleeping in. As we entered the rich flowery smell was intoxicating. This was contrasted by the stark white nature of the room, there was a tub, a oval sink, and toilet, all white. The only splash of color were the blood red towels. She guided my weak body over to the tub and with her other hand she put it behind my right thigh and helped lift my weary leg into the tub. The water was still hot and felt soothing as it crept up my leg as it was lowered into the tub.

She shifted her weight to my other side and was now propping me from the other side. She repeated the action with her other hand, running it up the back of my left thigh and lifting it up and guiding my left leg into the soothing waters. With both legs planted in the tub, she says "Trust Me, I will lower you so you don't fall again." and as she is standing behind me she puts her hands under my arms and under my breasts and locks her fingers together. She pulls by body to the head of the tub and then lowers my body into the water. After enough of my body has sunk under the water I am light enough for her to loosen her grip. Her hands slide under my breasts and under my arms to finish lowering me into the tub.

The ache and pain that emanates throughout my body is lessened by the hot water. Kiera grabs a glass from the sink and fills it with water and puts it to my lips and I try to sip some water. It burns as it goes down my throat. She repeats it a few moments later and the burn still but pain is lessened. I give her a nod that I can drink some more. I drink the whole glass of water after several drinks from the glass. I realize how dehydrated and hungry my body is. I wonder how long I have been out. But I will worry a little later the bath is so nice that my body finally starts to loosen up.

She sits on the edge of the tub and say she will stay and watch me in case I fall asleep or pass out again. She gives me a safe feeling that I cannot shake. This person, this Kiera that I did not know that long ago is now sitting her looking over my naked body sitting a tub of water, yet I have not felt this safe in long time. She brings the water glass up to my lips one more time and says "Take these pills they will help with the pain." She places them on my tongue and I take another sip of water to wash the pills down. I then slide down into the water and enjoy the warm bath. Eventually I close my eyes and I must have drifted off to sleep.


	4. Pushing forward

I don't know how long I fell asleep for, but as I awoke I felt like I was floating. A voice behind me says "Take your time, you are safe". I realize that Kiera is sitting behind me with her legs in the tub. She had kept me propped up so that my head would not sink under the water. I woke up with the strangest sensation running through my body. The weightlessness was the best feeling as there was almost no pressure and tenseness on my body. All weight was lifted from my body for that brief respite. My bruised body was not aching, but I knew the pain would not be gone for long.

As I awoken Kiera slid her feet out of the tub and stepped around the tub to look at me face to face. She says, "You must have been through hell, you passed out again and have been soaking in the tub for the past hour." She then leans over and says "Let me help you out of there, I don't think you have the strength to do it yourself after the spill you took earlier."

I try to help by putting my hands on both edges of the tub to prop myself up, but my arms scream in such agony and I cry from the pain and shock that I am in. She looks assuredly at me and says "Let me do this for you." I give her a faint smile and listen to her and watch her body movements. Much in the same way she expertly positioned me into the tub, she is now removing me. She again scoops her hands underneath my arms and wraps them under my breasts and locks her fingers. She says "This probably going to hurt" and she hoists me up and I scream out in agony. The process continues again as she slides her hand down first my left thigh lifts my leg out and does the same for my right leg.

Being removed from my watery womb is a terrible experience. The sensation is like that of needles being pushed into every part of my body. I will myself to not pass out from the pain. After I scream out in pain so loudly Kiera sits me down on the edge of the tub. She reaches over and grabs one of the red towels and wraps it around my dripping wet body. After she tucks the towel in on itself, she wraps her arms around me and whispers in my ear "That it will be better" and holds me for a few moments. After a few minutes, I raise my head and tell her "I think I would like to try and get up."

Kiera then sits next to me on the edge of the tub and helps me up to my feet with her arm under my right arm. She guides me back out to the hallway and back to the bed that I was sleeping in. She gently sits me on the edge of the bed. She says she can bring me some food to eat and I tell her I would like to try and eat at a table. She gives me an understanding glance and says "In that case I should help you get some clothes on." She goes over to the wooden chair in the corner of the room and retrieves the pile of clothes. She says "I picked these out and hopefully they will fit."

As I looked over her amazing physique and her face that looks so eerily similar to my own, I can agree with her assumption . She is wearing a long grey t-shirt that is now damp from picking me up and moving my broken body from the tub to the bed.

Before I can say a word she grabs the towel from the corner and undoes the towel. She takes the towel and gently wipes my legs and arms with the towel. She has my white panties in her hands that look as though they have been laundered. She lift one leg and slips in though one side and then the other. She slides the panties to just over my knees and stops and tells me "To sit there for just a moment more" she looks at the sports bra and pushes it aside and says "You are in too much pain for this". She then picks up a large navy blue t-shirt. She shakes the shirt out and rolls it up. I painfully raise my arms and she guides the shirt over my arms and pulls it slowly down over my head, then my breasts, till the excess fabric is resting on lap.

She says "It is time to get you up and head to the kitchen". Kiera helps lift me up off the bed and she steps behind me grabs the right and left sides of the my panties and guides them up my thighs and up and under the t-shirt. She then puts her left arm under my right arm and guides me to the doorway. We enter the hallway and she says that the kitchen is at the end of the hallway. So I take all the help she offers as we make our way to the kitchen. I try my best to hold back the agony I feel as we make it to the kitchen. She guides me to a large glass table by what appears to be a sliding glass picture window. She sits me down in a seat that looks out the window yet I can also see her enter into the kitchen. She starts talking to me and says that the lake out the window was where I must have came from since I was damp and wet when she found me.

I ask her "How long have I been sleeping?" and Kiera says "You have been sleeping for over two days. With the pain you are in today, I am amazed that you woke up so early."

"Where are we? What year is it?"

Kiera says "I'm not really sure where we are, but from my best recollection it is now 2085. I was living a normal life in the city, and one day I was abducted in the street. They took me somewhere and questioned me. When they finished they must have drugged me and I woke up here"

I say "Then you traveled here by a sphere." and Kiera looks at me quizzically and nods no.

She asks me what a 'sphere' is, and I say "That may be complicated to explain." Kiera says "We probably have some time."

Kiera exits the kitchen with a large bowl of soup and a plate of homemade bread. I pick up a spoon and carefully try and feed myself the soup. Kiera sits down across from me with her own soup and listens as I recount the story of the time-traveling sphere and how I arrived here.

After my story she looks at me, and asks is it not 2085, and I tell her I do not know anymore.

As I finish the soup, she looks at me and says would you like some more, and she has to say no more as the expression on my face gives way to the content of being taken care of for the first time in long while.

When she comes back with refilled soup bowl, she sits back down and starts to recount some of what has transpired since she has arrived here.


	5. Time on the Flip Side

Kiera has a long tale to tell. She has been for a lack of better word imprisoned in a land not her own, but she has no idea how, when, or really where she is at this point.

I tell her that maybe she tell me about her time before she arrived here, as I am trying to figure out if there are any commonalities between our lives to explain why she is here and I am here.

She started to tell me of her life, and how it was nothing extraordinary that she should not be noticeable. She was a computer programmer, and I asked immediately "What do you write programs for?" and she stated that it was mostly low level sequences for artificial intelligence. The company that she worked for was developing subroutines for a robot that defuses bombs.

She however expressed her worry to the company that the same subroutines could be reversed and that the robots could build bombs if the parts were within reach. She pointed out that she was assured that it would not be possible for the robot to do that, but the official response felt as though her superiors already knew of that possibility.

Kiera then spoke of her lovely daughter, she started to cry and at that point I reached across the table to hold her hands in comfort. She said her daughter would now be eighteen. She was adopted as soon as she and her partner were married, but she considered her daughter to be her own blood. She was sad that she had missed so many of the formative years of her daughter's youth since being stuck in this place. Her daughter was the light of her life, and its thoughts of seeing her again that give her strength.

I asked her what she would do when she was not a computer programmer. She talked about her joy of running. There were many trails that ran around the edge of the city that it was a runner's dream come true. I noted that she must run here too since her legs were so toned and muscular when I saw her in her lingerie earlier. She obviously takes great care of her body. But she spoke of mostly doing things as a family with her daughter and spouse. They did everything together. They went camping, concerts, museums, and anything that brought them joy as a family.

She didn't really seem like the kind of person that would be abducted as I was. So I just continued to listen to her continue to talk about her life. After awhile she changed over to talking about her other half who was working a very successful career in counter surveillance in the cities police force. The division took down some of the city's biggest criminals but rarely were they in the field. Much of their work was done at a desk behind a computer.

I asked how they met, and she proceeded to tell me how she was running as she usually did in the afternoons and on this particular day she decided to try a steeper hill trail that she often avoided but she was looking for a challenge that day. About halfway up the hill she stepped on some loose gravel and had slipped and fell and hit her head on a stone and fell unconscious. When she woke up she was being cradled in the arms and being comforted by a stranger. That stranger would become the love of her life and they were married on the one year anniversary of that faithful day. She started to cry again as she stated that the greatest pain is not seeing her partner and spouse Alexa for the last eight years.


	6. Shifting Lives

After Kiera stops sobbing after reminiscing over Alexa and her daughter, we talk further about the day she was taken. It was just a normal work day for Kiera. She and Alexa woke up that day and took a morning shower and Alexa took their daughter to school and Kiera took the train into the city to her office. She did her office work and finished up and was heading home, she stopped at a grocery store to pick up a bottle of wine to take home, while looking around the shop, someone walked past her. When they passed behind her she felt I pinch in her shoulder. She paid for the wine, but she does not recall making it to the train.

When she awoke she was in a glass cell and there were other people in some similar cells in the same room, but the cell seemed to muffle all sound as she could not her any of the other people in the other cells. She says she did not recognize any of the people in the cells or any of her captors She tells of being taken out for interrogations quite often with her captors asking about her involvement in the resistance. She kept telling them that she had no idea what they were talking about but they would not accept that answer and would take her back to her cell only to bring her back shortly to ask the same questions again.

After repeating the same interview for what seemed like days, on what was her last interview someone behind her in the room had said "We can't risk her being the one" and she was put back in her cell and some gas was pumped into her cell and she fell asleep. When she woke up, she was a the bed in this house with no recollection as to how she got from her cell to this bed.

I tell Kiera "It seems as though we have been talking for quite a while as it's getting dark outside." Kiera says "You must be tired from sitting up for so long and you have a long path of recovery ahead of you."

I tell Kiera "I am still feeling quite weak but the food has been very helpful. If you don't mind I probably should go rest back in the bed." Kiera smiles back at me and rises from her seat and comes around and pulls my chair away from the table. She reaches down and puts her hand under one of my arms and helps me up. As I start to rise I forget how weak my legs are and they start to buckle and she quickly guides my body back towards the seat. "You still need a lot of help to avoid further hurting yourself." so she goes behind the seat and puts her hands under both my shoulders and says "Let's try this again!"

This time I am successfully on my feet. Kiera takes her foot and pushes the chair away from between us and then puts her shoulder up under mine again and we make our way out of the dining room past the kitchen and back down the hallway to the bedroom. She guides me around the foot of the bed to the far side where I was first lifted out. We sit down simultaneously on the bed and then she slides her arm from out under my shoulder.

Kiera stands up and cups her hands under feet one under my thighs and the other at my calves and hoists my legs up onto the bed. The pain is still piercing through my legs, but it is a relief to not use my muscles that just burn when I try to use them.

Kiera looks at me compassionately and says "If you need anything call out and I can come and help you" She pulls the sheets and the comforter up and over my body up to shoulders and leaves the room and comes back a few moments later with some more pills and a glass of water. "Take these, they will help you sleep." I let her place the two pills on my tongue and I sip some water to wash down the pills. I thank her for all she has done for me, and she smiles at me and leaves the room and I quickly fall asleep.


	7. A New Day Again

When I wake up it is bright again with light streaming in through the window in the room. After my second night in this bed and this house, I am a little more comfortable with my surroundings. At least my mind is getting a little clearer and I know where I am when I wake, wherever here is. That is a question I still need to figure out.

I think about trying to get up myself and make my way to the bathroom. I move my legs towards the edge of the bed and they still ache terribly so I decide wisely to get Kiera's help getting up. I try calling out for her, but the house is as quiet as a coffin as my voice falls dead in the air. I wait a few moments and try again but there is no answer. Maybe Kiera fell sound asleep late last night or maybe she is outside. So I lie there and wait. After a period of time I hear a door open and close elsewhere in the house. I call out "Kiera, is that you?" "Yes, I will be right in." Kiera hurriedly comes down the hallway and enters the bedroom. She is wearing pair of jogging shorts and a grey t-shirt that is wet with perspiration. Her forehead has beads of sweat still dripping down and off her brow. "I'm sorry I wasn't here. You were sleeping so soundly so I went out for a morning jog around the lake." I tell her "You do not need to apologize, you are helping me out so much already."

She looks at me and exclaims "You probably need to be helped out of bed to the bathroom" and I nod back in approval. She comes around to the side of the bed and pulls back the sheets and helps guide my legs over the edge of the bed till they are hanging off the side of the bed. My legs feel so rubbery, the swelling in my legs has gone down and so the bruises on my legs are more defined now. She puts me through the same steps she used the day before and puts her arm under my arm and says "Let's do this together." and we stand up. The pain in my legs is intense and throbbing and my legs momentarily give and they start to buckle as we both fall backwards onto the bed and with our arms locked she rolls on her side towards me.

As she rolls right back off of me I feel the heat coming off of her and a sweet and musky odor. Being incarcerated for so long, I have not smelled anything like that in a while. The smell brings back memories of working out hard myself and the emotional high that I received from the endorphin release. It now seems like it was all a lifetime away, and a lifetime I am worried I may never get back too.

Kiera looks at me and says "Maybe we need to try that a little bit slower" She puts her arm under my arm again and we both rise up and she braces her body more this time and I lean towards her to stay up. After a minute, some feeling comes to my feet and I tell her "I am ready to try and move" I put one foot forward and we start moving and make it around the corner to the bathroom. She got me turned around to the lavatory and then puts both of her arms under my arms from the front and helps me lower down to the seat. She kneels down and works the band of my panties down over my ass and I help by leaning to the left and the right to help her get the panties down around my legs. She leaves me there and says she will be back in a few moments. I say "Thank you for the help" and she leaves the room.

When she returns she has a pile of clothes in her hand. She says she will take a quick shower and then draw me a bath. A nod in agreement and she proceeds to describe the area around the lake where she runs, as she strips off her sweat stained t-shirt and then a snug sports bra which releases her breasts. Her body glistens in the morning light with the large beads of sweat still sticking to her body. She leans over the tub to turn the water on and as she leans in close to me I see the muscles ripple under the surface of her skin near her abdomen. She then steps into the shower pulls the curtain back and quickly a pair of jogging shorts drop outside of the curtain and onto the ground. She continues to talk about the lake and she discusses how she is confused about how I arrived in the lake as there are no structures anywhere around the lake. I tell her that I don't fully understand how I got here either. After a few minutes, she plugs up the drain and the water starts to splash as the bathtub starts to fill. Kiera steps out of from behind the curtain and grabs a red towel from the rack where they hung near the tub. For a brief moment I caught a glimpse of her perfectly naked body from head to toe. She is toned from head to toe. There is almost no fat on her, but being trapped in this place for eight years, she must run to pass the time. She runs the towel over body once to remove most of the water and then she says "It's your turn." and she steps over to me and she helps lift me up and rotates me around to the tub and helps to sit me right back down on the edge of the tub. She then help me lift both legs up and over and into the tub that is still filling up.

She again steps behind me and bends down and grabs the bottom edge of the t-shirt and pulls it up over my head and off. My body looks awful in comparison, the black and blue bruises are deep and cover a good part of my body emphasizing the great pain I have been experiencing. She then helps me one last time to sit down into the water by wrapping her arms under my arms and under my breasts. Using her leverage on me she lowers me down into the warm water. Again the comfort I feel in the water bath is exhilarating, it brings me is one of the best feelings I have since arriving here. She hands me a small soft hand towel and says "I will let you clean yourself, since I don't know how tender some of those bruises are." She turns off the water. "I think I will be OK today", and she steps away.

She returns a little later with the towel still wrapped around her midsection. Behind me she puts on some of the clothes that she brought in earlier.

Kiera states "That she is warming up some more of the soup we had yesterday and that she was going to reduce the heat and then she would be back." She leaves and then again returns in a few minutes. When she returns, I tell her "I am finished bathing." She helps me out of the tub, and I say "Can we try and dress me in here?" and she says "We can try." and she slides a chair from nearby with her foot towards us. She rotates it around and then uses her free hand to toss a towel open on the seat then helps me to the seat. I grab the edges of the towel and use it to dry my legs. With a second towel, she places it over my shoulder helps move it around to wipe the moisture from my arms, shoulders, breasts, and stomach. After I am dried off, she says she brought me some clean underwear she had in storage which she again slides up my legs to right over my knees. She then removes the towel off my shoulder and helps me get a clean t-shirt over my head and on.

She then helps me to the dining room table again where I can see the lake that she was jogging around. She goes into the kitchen and comes back with two bowls of soups for each of us. She goes back again to bring back a bread and drinks for both of us.

I then ask Kiera "Can you tell me what has happened to you since you arrived here?" as I am still trying to figure out what this place is and where are we. Kiera then starts a lengthy tale of her time in this place.


	8. A New Life Imprisoned

Kiera picked up the story where she woke up in a bed in this house one day like nothing ever was any different after previously enduring days of interrogations in an undisclosed location.

Kiera told me of the first day that started this now eight year part of her life. She woke up and was in pajamas as though she went to bed the night before in the same bed. She got out of bed found some slippers to put on her feet and walked outside. She wanted to find out where she was and how she could maybe escape and get back home. When she left the house there were several other buildings with most looking like houses. They were all in a small cluster much like a tiny town or village. The other "residents" of the town were outside doing various activities. Kiera spoke of any elderly man Edouard who was tending to a garden. There were also a few other "residents" that included people named Greg, Jasmine, and Sonya. Kiera found out that she was the last new person to arrive at the settlement.

Most of the residents did some jogging or running and mostly were involved in some sort of gardening or agriculture. The settlement was mysteriously self-sustaining. The only form of power seemed to come from a small solar array that a few meters from the buildings. There was always enough electricity to sustain the small population. The other oddity to the town was an unmanned supply building. Somehow there was always a full supply of materials within the building yet no one could never figure out how it stayed supplied or who may be resupplying the building.

All of the residents had a very similar story of being abducted and questioned for various lengths of time, and then waking up here one day for no apparent reason. The whole settlement was what would be called low tech. The solar panels were the only apparent energy source. Their stoves, hot water tanks, refrigerators, and lights were all that the panels provided electricity for in all the buildings. There was no advanced technology at work anywhere as far as they knew or could find.

The other residents spoke of previous people who were there for a time and then one morning they weren't there. However during the tenure in which Kiera was present, no one left and no one new appeared. Life was like that till a few months earlier. For years, small parties of the group would take day long hiking trips trying to find other people somewhere else yet all the trips never yielded any positive results. A few months ago the group decided to venture out further than they normally hiked and packed extra supplies to camp outside for a night and go further than they had ever done previously. Kiera had came down with a cold at that time and stayed behind in the camp while the rest of the group went out on the overnight trip. However, none of them ever returned to the camp after that night.

Kiera told of making several solo trips out to see if she could find evidence of where they may have gone but she never found anything. So she had been living on her own in the camp for the past few months. That was until I showed up two days ago. After another long day of talking my beaten body had caught up to me any I needed to get to bed, so Kiera literally gave me her shoulder and helped me back to the bedroom again to rest some more. She was as kind and as gentle as she had been with all her other movements with me and I was soon back in the bed with sheets over me again. She gave me a few pills to help with pain which a gratefully took and I was exhausted again and prepared to sleep some more.


	9. Venturing to the Garden

Today arrived much the same way as the proceeding days. It was already bright with light streaming in through the window in the bedroom. I tried to call out for Kiera, but she did not respond, so I decided that she must have went running as she did yesterday. After a few moments I decided that I would again try and get up by myself. I try and slide my feet to the edge of the bed. There is a throbbing pain that runs up and down my leg. The pain is very acute but I think my muscles are starting to respond. I move my body to the end of the bed with the large wood baseboard. I use the frame for support as I let my feet drop to the floor. The pain is intense but my legs seem to be holding up as I keep a tight grip onto the frame as I rise up off the bed. I am somewhat wobbly but I stand there for moments to settle my mind down and then try to move on my own. I guide myself to the right down the length of the frame and then I use the wall for support and I make it to the doorway.

I am grateful that the bathroom is so close at this moment. I use the wall and make a wide 180° turn into the doorway to the bathroom. I quickly move along the left wall to the toilet, I turn and perform a somewhat coordinated freefall onto the seat as my leg muscles will not let me go down easily. I manage to hit my target and I am pleased with this small victory. I am recovering slowly. I wiggle around on the seat and work the panties down to my knees, I push them forward and let the drop all the way to the floor. After I am finished with the toilet, the tub is directly adjacent to the toilet so I turn my body to the left and lift my legs up one at a time using my hands and get my legs to sit on the lip of the tub. I continue to scoot myself to the edge till at last I have to use my hands to move my behind from toilet to the tub's edge. I somehow manage it without falling down. It is another small victory for me.

Now that I am sitting on the edge of the tub, I turn on the water. It is icy cold at first and quickly heats up. After the water is hot enough, I use my hand and drop the cork into the tub and use my foot to use it to plug the drain. I watch as the water streams into the tub. Steam is rising out of the water and the sensation on my toes causes me to recall memories of my past life in 2077. Getting up early and working out and then coming home to wash up before heading for duty. My life now seems so simple back then. My life has become complicated with more twists and turns with each day's passing since I was transported back to 2012.

As the tub is approximately half full, I decide it is safe to try and get in, because I now have the buoyancy of the water to help me into the tub. I make my way around to the head of the tub by scooting on the edge. I pull my t-shirt up over my head and let it fall to the floor behind me. I then just scoot forward and let myself slide into the water. The water moves in slow motion as it runs up and over my legs, and then it rises up between my legs and over my waist. The water rises up and settles just under my breasts. I then bend my knees and let my chest lower into the water till it is eventually up to my neck.

I let the water continue to pour in till it is almost to the top of the tub. I reach up with my foot and push the handles back to turn off the water. I settle back and let myself float in the water. I let myself my head sink under the water for a moment. The weightlessness for that brief moment feels so calming.

As I rise out of the water, it feel invigorating. I still have no idea where I am exactly, but for this moment I am not being hunted nor is there someone to hunt so I just enjoy the feeling. Shortly, I hear a door opening and Kiera says "Are you awake?" I exclaim "Yes, I am in the bathroom."

Kiera turns the corner and enters the bathroom with a worried look for but a moment and then a look of surprise and happiness as she sees that I have successfully made it to the bathroom and have drawn myself a bath. Little does she realize how much effort it took me to get here by myself. Kiera steps over and grabs me a washcloth and drops it into the water for me. I tell her "Thanks" and glance back at her with a smile.

She is dripping with sweat just as she was yesterday. Her damp shirt is clinging to her body. Her physique is again on display. She is quite toned. She was must follow a similar routine from day to day. She puts the seat down on the toilet and chit-chats for a few moments. I just sit in the water and enjoy the free feeling in the water. After a few minutes she excuses herself and exits to the kitchen. A few cabinets open and close in the kitchen and she returns in a few minutes. As she enters the bathroom she pulls her shirt off and uses it to wipe some of the perspiration from her forehead and chest.

After a few more minutes I sit myself upright in the tub and knock the plug from the drain and the water starts to drain out. "Would you like a hand out of the tub?" I don't refuse her invitation and say "I would probably be safer for me" and I give her a smile as I look up at her. Steps behind me and helps pull me up to the tub edge. She pulls the wooden chair from the corner of the room and moves it towards the center of the bathroom. She helps me to the chair and comes back with some fresh clothes for me. She asks "Do you want some help with these" and I say "I think I will try and dress myself today". She puts the clothes in my lap and says "That sounds like you're making progress." She then turn around pulls off her sports bra and pushes off her shorts and underwear in one motion and then steps forward into the tub and draws the curtain shut.

As she showers, I struggle and manage to get the panties on my legs and slide them up awkwardly till I have them rolled up to my waist. I then grab the shirt and pull is up over my head and then pull it down over my body and let the excess rest on my lap. Today she has brought me a pair of shorts and I ask her what the shorts are for and she states "I thought you may like to step outside" and I say "That would be great!"

Kiera turns of the water and steps out of the shower and grabs a towel from the rack and dries herself off. With the chair sitting in the middle of the room there is little room between Kiera and myself. So she is close to me as she runs the towel through her hair and wipes her chest off and then she runs it around her torso and then she bends over and dries off each of her legs. Watching her move so gracefully in front of me reminds me of my body, the same one that is broken and recovering right now. She walks out of the room and returns in few minutes with some fresh clothes on. She comes back with a pair of sandals that I slip my feet into. She holds my hand to give me some support to get out of the seat. She says "Let's try and take a short walk outside before we eat. Do you need me to help you out?"

"Maybe I can just hold your hand, just I case I lose my balance." and Kiera grips my hand tightly and we make our way to the front door and step outside.


	10. The Lost Settlement

As I step outside, it is a bright sunny day and it takes a moment for my eyes to adjust. There are six other buildings nearby.

Five of the buildings are of the same size and shape and the sixth building is slightly larger and only has a door that I can see from here. Kiera guides me on a short tour around the little settlement. Right next to her house is the house of Edouard. She explains that even though he and the others have been gone for several months that she continues tend to all gardens that were started. She states "It keeps me busy with something to do during the days." I ask her "Have you ever wondered where they went and why they didn't return?" "I think of them every day. We were a family here, and my family was all gone in one day." She gets a little sad for a moment, I tell her "I am sorry for bringing it up, but I would like to help you find them to if they are out there." That quickly makes her happy again and she is smiling behind the tears.

She says that she does not go into the other houses, but since no one really has any personal items there is not really anything special or personal in any of the houses. However, she takes me into Edouard's house, the air is stale as we step inside the house. The furnishings are very similar to those in Kiera's residence. No one has any electronics of any sort, the only thing that personalizes Edouard's home compared to Kiera's is the choice of books scattered around the residence. When we step outside, it is more evident that each of them personalized their homes by what they did outside their homes walls.

Edouard seems to have taken the seeds from the fruits and vegetables that they ate and turned them into a vibrant garden. Kiera explained that the taste of the vegetables that the garden produced was far better than what came from the storeroom. She walked me up to the tomatoes and picked a fresh one off the vine, and she said "This is where everything came for the vegetable soup that you ate" I said "It was delicious, and now I know why. This garden is unbelievable. I have never seen so many fresh vegetables being grown out in the open."

Kiera asks me where we get vegetables where I am from and I tell her that "They are grown underground in hydroponic chambers. There is no longer enough land space to sustain growth for all the population of the world. We have solved many of the world's deadliest diseases and crime is almost non-existent ."

"With that many people living so close together, it must get uncomfortable. " I tell her, "It is probably tough for some but we try our best to make it better for everyone. I had a good job in law enforcement and as my husband had a good job also. " Kiera says "There must have been some people that were unhappy with their place in your society" and I say "Yes, there were and they are how I ended up here, or at least I think they are the reason. I'm not sure anymore."

Kiera and I continue to walk amongst the garden plants and around Edouard's house and she points towards the next house and says this was Sonya's house. Sonya's house has a well organized layout of strawberries and carrots. The plants seem to have been planted at various times as the berries are in various states of maturity which seem to be laid out in rows according to their planting age as you circumvent the house.

We step for a brief moment into Sonya's house but the view is the same as Edouard's. Just a few books, and some clothes scattered around. Last three houses are in the same state of abandonment as these two. The only signs of change is taking place on the outsides of the homes where Kiera is tending to all the plants.

Finally we are at the last building, which is different from all the others. The building has nothing growing around it and there is but one door to enter the building and it has no windows. As we enter the building, lights illuminate on their own. Kiera states "All the supplies that we need are found here. There are shelves with all sorts of clothes from shorts to pants, shirts of various types, and various undergarments. There are also various foods that are mostly canned and a few in wrapped packages." Kiera explains "The storeroom seems to be occasionally refilled, but no one has ever been able to figure out how it was replenished."

Other than some hills and a few trees, the lake is the only feature of note beyond the few buildings. After our short walk we head back to the house to sit down and eat some food. After we eat, I tell Kiera I wouldn't mind sitting outside for a while, and she says "That would be wonderful." After she cleans up the dishes, she grabs a bucket and we both go outside and she gives a hand sitting on the grass and we talk some more about the her time her with the others while she tends to the vegetables in Edouard's garden.


	11. Recovery

During the next few days I am getting around by myself. My body is recovering from my time during my imprisonment and my subsequent escape. Kiera seems to more appreciative of my presence here than I am. It is likely from living isolated these last few months. I am quite committed to her into finding out what happened to the others and to figure out where we are being held captive, if this is captivity.

While we are here, I want to be as helpful as I can, so I have slowly started to help Kiera tend to the gardens. Gardening has been very therapeutic for me. It has given me a chance to step outside and enjoy the warm glow of the daylight on my skin. The freedom gives me such an emotional high. I was locked up for such a long time with no contact with anyone else other than my captors. I feel happy and comfortable at this moment although I should be more worried. Why am I here? How is it possible that there can be another Kiera Cameron? Where are we? But I will try to figure the answers to those questions.

The fresh fruit and vegetables from these gardens provides us with some of the most remarkable meals. In 2077, we never had anything quite as delicious as what is being grown here. I am amazed at the tastes of the fruits, you can pick a strawberry off the vine and eat it right there. Gardening also gives me time to talk to Kiera and she asks me about my life at home.

Kiera asks "What was life like where you come from?"

"I was a law enforcement officer, but there is little crime in my time. The criminals are tracked down and prosecuted rather quickly." I respond back to her.

"How can you track criminals so fast to protect everyone?"

"Officers are implanted with technology that links us to a computer system that alerts us to threats. We are also provided with the best technology to help us with our job"

"It sounds like you have much more advanced technology where you came from than my home," says Kiera.

"I thought it was very peaceful, but some of the worst criminals in our time kept us busy. They would perform terrible things like blowing up buildings to make a point."

"I guess there are bad people everywhere."

"I thought we doing good work, but we never seemed to be done finding crimes perpetrated"

"Did people report crimes to the officers?"

"No? Our technology would track peoples movements and when something happened the computer system would predict where they would go."

Kiera exclaims, "That does not sound like freedom, it sound like a police state."

"But everybody was living a good life."

"Not everybody was happy if you still have criminals"

"Maybe, but we were trying to make life better for everyone."

"Who was making life better for everyone?"

I look at her puzzled and say "I am not quite sure who was making all the decisions that the officers were acting on."

Kiera has left me questioning my own place in my society. I have always believed in what I have done, but maybe she is right. I tell Kiera "Some of the people that we were told were the very worst of society orchestrated a jail break and I ended up in 2012 because of technology that I had never seen before."

"But I thought the police were working with the most advanced technology."

"I may have been mistaken, but I don't know where they got hold of technology with that much power. But then similar technology put me here with you."

Kiera smiles at me, "Yes, it did. Maybe the same technology brought me here, but I never saw anything with such power as you talk about."

"What is life like in your society?"

Kiera says "Most people have computers and telephones that we can talk to other people with, but I don't think the computers are as advanced as you talk about in your city."

"What did you do for entertainment?"

"We would usually get together with friends and family. We would talk and play board games with each other."

I quizzically ask Kiera, "What is a board game?"

"There were many games, they were a mini-competition on a small flat board. Usually the winner was able to complete the task that was laid out in the rules first or the quickest."

"People enjoyed doing this?"

Kiera giggled and said "It was fun, it brought me closer to my family as it was something we did often. Everybody had a game they enjoyed and that they could win. Maybe we can build a board game from some stuff that we have."

"I think I would enjoy that." as I smile approvingly at Kiera.

We finish filling the bucket we brought out to the garden and head back into the house with our freshly picked produce.


	12. Exploration

I get up with the morning light and help Kiera prepare some food for breakfast. We work together carefully cutting up some fresh fruits to go with some cereal that was in the storeroom. I tell Kiera that it is not fair that I sleep in the only bed when it is hers and that she should take the bed back. I can sleep where she has been sleeping.

Kiera looks at me with a caring gaze and says "After the stories of your time incarcerated I would never do that to you, as I have been sleeping on the floor by the fireplace."

"Then how about I move into one of the other houses. It can be temporary if the others are found."

Kiera looks away for a moment, and then exclaims "Maybe we can just share my bed for now, it is large enough for us both."

I think about her offer for a moment , "I think that would be okay for now. At least the bed will be comfortable for both of us." After we finish with our breakfast and clean up the dishes, I look out the window at the lake "I wouldn't mind trying to go on a jog with you, but I don't know if I will keep up with you"

"We don't need to go fast. I can jog at your pace."

I change into clothes to do some running. Kiera is already dressed. We walk out to lake. As we near the trail I can see a clear path that must round the whole of the lake. It must have been made by the years of jogging by her and likely the other inhabitants that were here.

We start down the path, it is quite obvious that Kiera uses the path daily. I tell Kiera to go first and I will follow her. My injuries from my arrival here have subsided; however, my incarceration in such a small space has left me weak and physically weak. I am not as prepared for this as I believe I was. Kiera is clearly does this daily. After a about a hundred meters Kiera is quite far out and it looks like she has stopped and is jogging in place. Eventually, I catch up to her.

"I afraid I am probably just going to slow you down today. Maybe you can you do your normal routine and I will just walk and jog at a pace I can do for now."

"The path is very worn and easy to see so I will see you later. It is about a kilometer and a half around the lake, so I will probably see you sooner than you think." as Kiera smirks at me and starts off jogging ahead of me again.

I didn't want to admit it to her but that short run wore me out far more than I wanted to admit. I keep on the path but I am just walking it now. This is my first time around the lake since I arrived here and landed in the middle of it. As is make my way around the edge of the lake I am looking at the features of which there are few. Much like the rest of this place, there are very few unique features. The land has a slight slope downwards to the lake, and near the water's edge there are some rocks jutting out.

After short period of time, I hear some small thuds behind and when I look back I see Kiera catching up to me from behind. I step off to the right and let Kiera pass by. She gives me a glancing smile and keeps on going.

I keep on moving. I try a light jog and I go a several meters and then I am winded and slow back down. I will definitely have to pace myself and get back into shape. As I move around what seems to be a point which may be the far end of the lake, my eye catches some flat rocks. I notice that they do not seem to be stationary like all the other ones. They are less than a meter out in the water, so I decide to investigate. I take off my running shoes and socks. I wade out into the water, it is just a cold as it was the first time I was in it. When I am close enough, I bend down and touch one of the rocks and it easily plunges under the water. When is rises back up I grab it and pull it up.

It is one of my boots that I pulled off that first day to avoid drowning in this lake. I grab the other one and make my way back out of the lake. I go and sit down next to the trail and look at my boots. The rubber soles caused them to rise to the surface and they made their way eventually to the shore line. A little later Kiera comes circling back around again. She stops and sits down next to me.

"What do you have there?"

"These are my boots that I wore as police officer. There is a suit that I wore with this. I haven't told you about the night that I arrived here. But it was struggle to make it to your doorstep."

"I always wondered why you just had a bra and panties. " as she looks at me with amazement.

"I was unconscious for a moment, and when I came around I was sinking down into the lake. I tried to swim up but I could not move upwards. I quickly struggled to get out of my uniform and these boots just to swim to the surface of the water."

"I did not know you were in that much trouble that night. That is horrible. No wonder you were so cold, that lake is never warm enough to swim in."

"I'm just glad I found you that night, I don't think I would have survived without you."

"You surprised me that night, I had not seen or heard another person in quite a while."

Kiera picks up one of the boots and puts her hand out to give me a boost up and we walk the rest of the way back with my dripping wet boots in our hands. On the way back I tell her about my "super" suit.

"My suit may be able to help us find a way out of here."

"How can a uniform help us?"

"It's sort of complicated to explain, but the suit is actually embedded with advanced technology that helped me in apprehending criminals."

"I have never heard or seen such technology."

I decide I will tell Kiera some other time about the computer in my brain that interfaces with the suit. I think she has enough to process with our latest discovery of the boots.

We make it back to Kiera's house and take showers. We sit down and talk over some fresh drinks about that first night I arrived here.


	13. Investigating A Strange Land

I tell Kiera I would like to walk a little further out from the houses and try to see if my "Police eyes" can see details that may help us figure out where we are and how we might get home. Kiera explains how the group would venture out at different times looking for some link to civilization.

"One time Greg and Jasmine ventured out on their own and were gone for a day. They got lost trying to get back to the settlement."

"How did they get lost?" as I looked at her in wonder.

"As you venture away from the settlement, the land is very level with little features and when you are several kilometers away, everything looks the same in all directions."

"So what did you do to try and be safe on these walks. "

"We made some markers out of trash that we had. They were mostly foil wrappers on short poles. We would venture out in straight lines and leave markers within viewing distance of the previous."

"Did you ever find anything different?"

"It was always the same after a few kilometers. It seems as though the only different feature in the land is our settlement and the lake."

"Maybe we could take a walk on one of the marked paths."

Kiera looks out the window for a moment and looks back "Why don't we go for that walk today? It would be a welcome change."

We pack up some food and drinks to take with us for our walk and we head outside. We walk past Edouard's house and up past the solar panels and a make-shift marker is visible in the distance. Just as Kiera described as we near the marker and I look further ahead there is a small flag just visible above the ground. We keep moving along and pass ten, then twenty markers. After walking for a few hours we arrive at a marker that sitting in a can.

"We made these markers look different, because it is the last marker on this path."

"Why would you stop here?"

"This is as far as you can go and still get back to the settlement in the daylight."

"And the others went missing when they ventured further than these markers."

Kiera looks down "Yes, that was what they said they were planning to do, but they never came back."

Kiera turns around, and just as she starts to move, I touch her on the shoulder, "Maybe we should take a break before heading back." So we sit down on the grass and eat some of the food that we packed for the trip. After we finish up, we start back towards the previous marker. Kiera was quite right in her assessment of the trails. There are no features to note, nothing but green grass everywhere, except for the markers. We get back to the settlement as it is starting to get dark. Kiera was correct about the timing.

"Are all the paths just like the one we walked today."

"I never walked all the trails, but the description that was given was always the same by those who walked those ones, there was never anything different. That is why they wanted to try and go further at least once and see if it was the same past the current markers."

"Do you know which path they took?"

"Yes, we numbered them, and they were taking number seven that day."

"There must be something out there for them to never have returned."

"But, if they found more people, they were supposed to come back and get me, but they never returned" as Kiera head sinks down, I go over and hold her.

"I'm sorry about bringing that up."

"It's ok, it's not your fault that they did not come back."

We get up and prepare some food for dinner before heading off to bed.


	14. Waking Up For the First Time

As I wake up the next day, there is a warm body next to me and for a moment I believe I dreamt it all and here I was waking up next to my husband. I rolled over to put my arm over him, but my face was greeted by long flowing locks and a sweet fragrance wafting from Kiera's hair. I waken Kiera at the same time.

"I'm so sorry, I thought I was dreaming. But I am still here." I tell Kiera softly.

"Where did you think you were?" she says somewhat still groggy.

"I thought I was in bed with my husband in our bed, but I was mistaken."

"It's quite ok, it may have been too much for you too soon. Maybe I should sleep out by the fire for a few more days."

I tell Kiera, "No, I could not let you do that. I just have not shared a bed with someone since being transported from 2077. I am just not used to being in close contact with another person. It is comforting, I just woke up with different expectations."

"I don't mind having someone else in bed either. I was worried that I may have never seen another person."

"Let's try another night and hopefully I will be a little more comfortable with my settings."

We get out of bed and make the bed back up. Other than the abrupt awakening this morning of Kiera, we have developed into a routine together. We get up a make breakfast together, cutting up fresh fruit and making some juice. After cleaning up the breakfast dishes, we usually go out for a morning jog that I have slowly equaled Kiera's pace. We jog around the lake several times and then take some showers to cool down. We have a mid-morning drink and then go out and tend to some of the gardens around the settlement. Today we are tending the strawberries again. Fresh strawberries with our breakfast is something I had never experienced till I came here.

"I am fascinated by the fresh produce we have every day. Other than I am not in my home with my husband, this is not a bad place to be if you overlook the fact that we have no idea yet where 'this' is."

Kiera glances at my boots, now dry sitting by the door, "Why were you so interested in retrieving your old boots from the lake?"

"They have special abilities, but only if I can find my uniform that went with the boots." I go over and grab one of my boots and I point to the small electrical connection near the edges of the boot top. "These are where the boots electronically connect to the suit. I hope to find the suit someday, but it ran out of charge when I arrived here. That suit saved me when I hit the lake's surface"

"Does it float like the boot's did?"

"I'm not really sure. I never had to deal with a situation like this."

"We'll have to look at the lake a little more often during our morning runs."

Kiera still wonders about my suit "What made your uniform so special?"

"It was made with the most advanced technology of our time. I could become invisible to all other people and almost all sensors. It had the ability to generate a personal electric field that could deflect bullets."

"You suit is bulletproof?"

"The fabric is not bulletproof, but a highly charged electric field would deflect a bullet away from you body as it got near the electric field."

"And it can make you invisible?"

"No really invisible, but it bends light around you so that some one sees what is directly behind you, rather than you. The suit can do many more things that may be able to get us out of here if we can find it and get it to function."

Before it gets late we walk over to the storeroom to get some items to resupply Kiera's house. Kiera is somewhat accepting of the storeroom but I am not. I question why the storeroom is always stocked.

"Did anyone ever figure out how the storeroom is stocked fully all the time?"

"No, we could never find anything odd about it. Some of us tried sleeping in the storeroom at times, but on those days nothing happened to the storeroom. Whatever was removed was not replenished. But when no one was sleeping in there, the next day everything was stocked up again."

"Someone is getting in there, but how is the question. If we can figure that out we may have a clue on how to get out of here. But there is no advanced electronics to work with, at least that are visible to us. I think my suit may be able to help with that if we can find it, and if we can get it working again."

"Then we need to find you suit. It sounds like our best chance to ever get back to our homes."


	15. Fishing for Hope

Kiera has become more excited recently with my revelations about my suit. She wants to take walks more often around the lake to see if we can identify the suit in the lake. We have not had much luck so far. But the walks have given us a chance to explore the area around the lake.

"Kiera, something I have noticed since I have arrived here is the absence of any animals. There are no animals on the land. I have seen no fish in the lake. There does not even seem to be any bugs."

"I had noticed that too, but we were never able to explain about the absence of wildlife either."

"There are more mysteries than answers it seems about this place."

"We tried to answer many of the mysteries, but when you are given nothing to work with there is not much you can do. If what you said about your suit is true, it may be the first advantage that we have had here."

"That's if we find it."

We have not seen anything that may be the suit after several days, so we are feeling less hopeful. Then an idea comes to me while we are eating lunch.

"Kiera, we may be able to dredge the lake. We already have rope available, but if we could attach that to something that has hooks of some sort and some weight so that sinks, then we could dredge the lake and if we get lucky we will find the suit."

"We don't have anything that would serve as a weighted hook, but maybe we can make one. Some the cans from the storeroom are quite large and heavy. With one of our gardening tools we could split it open and make the hooks"

"I think that would work. We can work on that after lunch" I tell Kiera whose demeanor is clearly very optimistic.

We find a large can of tomato paste, which they have not been using since they started growing their own tomatoes. We take the can back to her house and pour it into a pot. She says we can still use for a soup base.

We take the can back outside and it takes some beating on the can to shape it, but we eventually get it turned into a design that is similar to a flower with six points curled around the base of the can. We put a hole in the center of the base to put the rope through. Once our homemade device is done, we take it to the lake to give it try.

I tell Kiera, "You should stand behind me and hold the end of the rope while I toss our anchor into the water."

"Ok, go for it"

I swing our device as hard as I can and heave it into the water. It looks to have gone 6 or 7 meters, and immediately starts to sink. After a few seconds, we start to pull the rope back in. It comes dragging out of the water with lots of dirt trapped inside the can.

"It looks like this may just work but it may take some time and luck."

Kiera looks at me, "I am willing to give it a try?"

"Maybe we can try and make a second one later and we both can do this and then the search could be done quicker."

"I think that would be an excellent idea, the lake is quite large and this may take some time."

We keep trying our new device for a few hours till it starts to get dark, and then head home to try again tomorrow.

The next day we go ahead and make a second device and we start dredging the lake together. We bring some items to set up markers to show where we have worked so that we don't do the same area or skip areas.

We keep working on our dredging for a few hours a day, since there is still gardens to tend to, and we do not know if the dredging will be successful. After over two weeks of dredging, Kiera gets really excited.

"I think I found something, the rope is much heavier to pull in."

"Let me help you with that." I pull in my rope and drop it and go over to Kiera. We both grip the rope. "Let's pull it in slowly, we don't want to damage the suit anymore if this is the suit." Kiera was right, the rope is much heavier. As something starts to rise out of the water, I tell Kiera, "Wait, let me go grab what's on the hook." I slip off my shoes and my socks, and wad out into the water. The water is up over my knees as I reach down and pull up the device and its haul.

It is caked in thick layer of mud from sitting on the bottom of the lake, but I am holding my suit in my hands.

"This is my suit Kiera. It certainly needs some cleaning and it will need to dry before we can figure out if it can work."

"Then let's take is back to the house and clean it up." Kiera picks up my socks and shoes as I walk back barefoot with the suit in hand. Kiera opens the door and I take the suit and place it in the tub, and then head out to the fireplace to warm up. I am cold from stepping into the lake and walking back barefoot with the cold mud dripping off the suit onto me.

Kiera says she will go and start cleaning the suit. she goes and fills the tub up with hot water and starts to scrubbing the suit with a washcloth. The amount of dirt and mud on the suit is considerable. Kiera ends up draining and refilling the tub twice after it reaches the consistency of chocolate milk. After the third time, I come in the bathroom.

"I can take over the cleaning and give you a rest." Kiera agrees and leaves me with the suit. I just wanted the opportunity to clean myself too. I strip down out of my muddy clothes and step into the shower. I unplug the drain and let the water drain, and then start the shower. Kiera has cleaned the outside of the suit, but the mud must be inside the suit too, so I turn the suit inside out and a brown milky goo seeps out and falls into the tub. I work from arm to arm and the leg to leg and rinse and scrub every inch. After a long while the suit finally seems to be devoid of mud. I let it sit on the edge of the tub and take a hot shower to clean my body off. Kiera comes back into the bathroom and peers into the shower.

"Is the suit clean?"

"Yes it is, but it needs to dry out."

"I will take it outside and hang it from the clothesline."

"Thanks" I tell Kiera.

Kiera picks up the wet suit, and I see her looking up at my body as the water cascades over me for a brief moment, and then she pulls away just as quickly. I finish up my shower, and go see about making dinner with her. The suit will have to dry out before we can proceed to see if will function.


	16. Powering Up

It took time but I eventually got comfortable with sharing a bed with another person. I wake up next to Kiera, and I know it is her by my side. It is not my husband, but is nice to have a warm body next to you in the morning.

We get up and make ourselves some breakfast and then go outside and check on the suit, the inside is dry and clean. We turn it out again and the other side is still damp. We hang it up again on the clothesline and let the suit dry some more.

After going for a morning jog, doing some work in the garden in the morning, and picking some vegetables to prepare for lunch, we went back to check on the suit. It is finally clean and dry. I try on my outfit. It slips on just like it did the first time.

"It fits, but it is not powering up at all."

"How do you recharge it?"

"It is usually connected to a computer, where the software inside the suit can be upgraded and it recharges at the same time."

"We certainly don't have a computer, but can we just power it up with electricity?"

"I have never tried to do that, but we don't have any other options. I think we can pull electric cables out of the wall from one of the homes to make a connection."

I explain further to Kiera that the suit does not charge in a traditional way of plugging it into a charger. It has thousands of miniature cells throughout the suit. To charge them all simultaneously we should make something to distribute the charge over a larger area to charge more cells at once. Once it starts to charge, it should reboot itself and then software should take over the charging and make sure all the cells are charged evenly.

"How will we charge it?"

"With what we have around the house, I would say cookie sheets would be the best way to distribute the electrical charge to greatest part of the suit at once."

"There should be enough of them at all the houses to do that."

"Then we should go shopping." as I smile back at Kiera.

We head off together and go from house to house gathering a collection of pans. We head to Edouard's house with all of them. We find a breaker to shut of the power in the house. I take off my suit. We line up a row of cookie sheets on the ground, then place the suit on top of those and then place a second row on top. We open up a wall outlet and disconnect the wires from the outlet and pull them further out of the wall. We connect a wire to the bottom row of cookie sheets and the other wire to the top row.

"I think that is the best that we are going to be able to do."

"I will go turn the breaker back on and we will see if it works" as Kiera leaves the room.

I hear a click from nearby. There is no explosion and breaker stays on, so we may be on to something. Kiera comes back into the room.

"Usually the suit took several hours to recharge under proper conditions, so I do not know how long this type of recharging will take." We head back next door to Kiera's house and prepare a nice dinner and talk some more about the suit and what it does. As it is getting dark we go back next door and Kiera turns off the electricity and I try on the suit.

"Does the suit work?"

"It is booting up." I say excitedly. "But is says it is at 2% and is shutting back down. This may take a little bit longer to get the suit charged up this way."

"It is still great news."

"I have to agree with you, even if it will be a day or two more."

I take the suit off and set it up between the cookie sheets again, and Kiera says she is going to turn the breaker back on. After that we head back home and go to bed. We are very excited as this seems to be a very positive breakthrough for the both of us.


	17. Suiting up

We did not sleep much last night, we were restless and excited to see what the suit may be able to help us do. Eventually we fall asleep.

We wake up the next day and check on the power levels and the suit is up to twenty percent, so we set it up and let it continue charge. We proceed to do some of our usual routine. We go for a long jog. We take a after workout shower. We make breakfast. We talk about our past lives and our spouses. There is some enthusiasm in the air.

"I miss my husband and it has only been a year. I can't imagine being away from him as long as you have been separated."

"We have been apart for almost eight years, but I know that Alexa is still waiting for me. We both knew it was true love and that we had found that special person that knew us well as we knew ourselves."

"Or maybe even better. My husband Greg knew me so well that he always knew what I would want to do just by the mood I came in the door with after work. It is so easy to be happy when someone else wants the same things that you do."

"We had been together for years before we got married, but marriage just formalized what we knew was a lifelong bond. She is the one thing I miss about being trapped here."

"Hopefully, my uniform will help get us out of our prison."

"I hope so too, you have given me my first real feeling of hope in all the time that I have been here."

"You give me more mysteries ponder and solve. How can there be two Kiera Camerons in the same time? Where exactly are we being imprisoned, or are we truly imprisoned?"

"We can figure that out when we get ourselves back home"

"I can agree with that. We need to get out of here, and then we can get back home."

"What can your uniform do to get us out of here?"

"It is difficult to explain but I am implanted with an interface that taps into the suit, so I am actually part of the computer. I think of what I want to do and it helps make it possible. If there is any type of electrical signals or heat signatures being masked here I can scan other wavelengths to see what the normal human eye can't."

"That is quite amazing."

"I guess it is if you have never seen this technology."

We continue to talk some more as we clean up the dishes from breakfast and then head outside to see what can be done in the gardens. We head over to the furthest house, where there is a area reserved for growing melons. They take up a lot of space so they grew them away from the houses. There are honeydew, squash, cantaloupes, and watermelons which have started to ripen. We are here to pick up one of the biggest watermelons. We keep looking through the patch and find a cantaloupe to accompany it. We carry the melons back to the house. We will cut them up later to eat with dinner. We walk around the settlement and talk some more before heading to Edouard's house to check on the power levels before heading in for the evening.

"The power levels are still rising. They are at fifty-five percent now."

"It seems like it will be charged up tomorrow."

"Yes, it does. Then we can do some investigating of this place with new eyes."

"Let's get the suit wired back up and let it continue charging."

I slip out of it, set it back in its charging station. Then Kiera goes and turns the power back on. We head home and eat dinner and then head off to bed.

As the sun rises on a new day, I wake up and Kiera is already awake. She turns over and looks at me.

"I think today is the day. I am really excited to see if you can figure a way out of here."

"I am excited too. I have not had my suit at full power and been able to wear it in a while."

We get dressed and head next door to check on the uniform. Kiera turns off the power and I retrieve it and slip in to the suit and put my boots on.

Kiera comes back and watches me intently. "Is it ready to go?"

"It is at ninety-six percent, which is good enough. Let's head outside and see what I can see now." I look around and oddly there is not much different. "The storeroom seems to be the most interesting place. There is a high amount of radiation coming off that building, but nothing from the rest. That is something that certainly needs to be investigated."

"Let's check that out right now."

"OK, let's go" and we head off to the storeroom.


	18. The Investigation Begins

We walk across the yard past many of the houses and arrive at the storeroom that we have been into many times, but now I see it in a whole new light. The rest of the houses seem to be exactly what they are just houses with simple appliances with no surveillance of any sort. However, the storeroom is radiating all kinds of radiation, some that can't be identified by my software. With the lack of technology here, the builders did not put much effort into hiding the storeroom technology, since no one could see it.

"You told me before how some of the group tried staying overnight in the storeroom."

"Yes, they did and nothing ever happened when they stayed in the storeroom."

"Did you ever figure out how the room was restocked, when you removed items?"

"No, we never did. It was just another mystery that we had no answers too."

"Let's set up an experiment. We need to figure out what exactly the technology is that is at work here. I see energy patterns that are similar to the transport sphere that brought me back to 2012."

"What can we do?"

"We will take out a few items that we normally take. Then we will move a few things around and maybe will swap the bags of these two cereals. Just change a few items to see if they are noticed. Then we will leave and come back tomorrow to see what changes."

"Is there something else we can do in the meantime?"

"I think I would like to look around and inside the other houses again for clues with my suit and my technology."

"I will come along and see what you find."

"Let's go." as we head out the door to the first house.

We go inside and I am looking with the aid of the diagnostics of my suit.

"Do you see anything different here."

"No, there is nothing out of the ordinary, just as I believed the first time you brought me into their homes."

"The rest are probably going to be the same."

We go to the rest of the homes. Our thoughts were confirmed as there was no extra electronics being utilized. The residual time travel radiation was not present. It was confined to only the storeroom.

We go back the next day to check out the storeroom. Everything is neat and orderly with everything replaced that we took.

"Whatever happens here is taking place somewhere else by the looks of it." I tell Kiera.

"Then let's try setting up a different experiment. We'll take some items again. But this time we can mix up other items."

"You set that up and I am going to look around the building for some more details." I move around the storeroom, but inside the building it is difficult to analysis the energy signatures. The energy is so intense that is difficult to distinguish where the signal could be originating. In the center of the room is a small metal box that is approximately half a meter on each side. There is a lock on one side that looks to be for a door into the box. With my suit is not difficult to get past the lock and doors unlatches. Inside is a sphere that looks very similar to the one I had used to get here.

"Kiera, come over here."

"Did you find something?"

"Yes, I believe I have. It looks like the sphere that brought me to 2012. Had any of you ever seen this before?"

"No, I did not know that was there."

"The problem is that there was a large power supply nearby when I activated the one that brought me here and there seems to be no power supply. I do not know how this one is activated, if there is no power supply present. We'll put it away and see what happens."

We go about our usual day, but we end up talking further about what little I know about the sphere. The next day we returned again for the third day. We were expecting another perfect set-up, but we found some of our switches from two days earlier were back.

Kiera goes and checks the cereal boxes, "Look, the bags we switched are here."

"Now it is making some sense. They are somehow transporting the entire room and its contents somewhere and they have an exact copy that they transport in place for the day."

"But somehow they know when people are in the building. Because nothing ever happened when we stayed in the building overnight."

"Let's check the center of the building again for a sphere."

"It looks like the same box is here and a sphere is most likely in there."

I tell Kiera, "I think we should trace the path that the rest of people here took, that they never returned from."

"Do you think that is safe to be doing that?"

"I don't know if it is going to be safe, but we need to figure out where the rest of your people went. It may be a clue to us getting back to civilization."

"But we will need to pack, because we be sleeping outside for at least one night since they were going beyond the normal marker length that we set that could be gone to and back before dark."

"Let's get packed then and we will be out early in the morning."


	19. Journey into the Wild

The next day I wake up and Kiera is already awake.

"I've always wanted to go and find out what happened to the rest of the group, but I did not want to go out there alone."

"I'm here now, and together we will figure this out."

"I hope we can find where they went, maybe they found a way out"

I don't want to tell Kiera that if they had found a successful way out of here, why did they not come back for her. I want to stay optimistic, till I find evidence to the contrary.

"Let's have some breakfast and get our trip started. I'm eager to see what is out there." as I look at Kiera.

"We will need to bring something to sleep in overnight, and enough food and water for at least two days. "

"Let's carry some extra food in case they ventured further out than we assume they went."

"I will go gather the stuff for our overnight accommodations and you can gather up the food."

We get everything packed up and head outside and go through our supplies to make sure we have what we need for the trip. We agree that we are all set for our journey.

"So which path was number seven?"

"That path starts behind Jasmine's house."

We head over behind Jasmine's house and Kiera points out the first marker and we are on our way. Since we have a long walk ahead of us, we talk about the people we are on our way to find.

"What did Edoaurd do before he came here?"

"He was a very fascinating man. I would describe him as a survivalist and environmental activist. He was always at home working in the gardens with his hands in the soil."

"Did he have any beliefs that seemed radical to you?"

"No, he was down to earth. He would often tell us that it was best to be one with nature. Being in sync with nature was going to help you go further your own life."

"He does not sound so much like the Edouard Kagame that in knew. He was a philosopher and tactician who led a band of people to fight the establishment in my time. Some people called him a terrorist."

"I do not think Edouard was a terroist. Not the man that was living here."

"How about Jasmine? The Jasmine I knew was an associate that worked for Kagame's cause. She was probably more dangerous than Kagame since she would use violence to get her way."

"Jasmine was very gentle and caring person to all of us. She described herself as a self-made cook. She was the one that showed us all what could be done to make what we had taste even better."

"So that is how you became such a great cook."

"Yes, she was an excellent teacher and taught us all great cooking techniques."

"It sounds like she was a very different person from the Jasmine Garza that I knew."

We been walking for a few hours and we make it to the marker in a can. This is the marker that would be the point to turn around and be home before it gets too dark to get home. However, we keep moving forward as there is another marker visible past this marker. It is just as Kiera described, that they kept putting down markers as they were planning to venture further out.

"Can you see anything different out there?" as Kiera looks in my direction.

"I have not seen anything yet, but it is strange that there are so few features to the land. There is really nothing other than grass everywhere, no trees or animals or insects."

We keep walking past markers till we reach a point where we lose sight of a next marker. We look around but the only visible marker is the one behind us.

"This looks like the last marker that they put down."

"But where did they go next?"

"I'm not sure, but I would say let's go forward and we can make our own markers going forward."

"It seems odd that they ..."

"STOP! Don't move another step forward." as my hand shoots out at Kiera's chest to bring her to a stop.

"What's wrong?" as Kiera looks worriedly at me.


	20. The Fringe

"I did not detect it till we right up against it."

"What do you see Kiera?"

"There is some sort of barrier in front of us."

"It can't be seen by the human eye, but it's there."

"Hand me a piece of food."

Kiera reaches into the bag of stuff she is carrying, "Here is a strawberry."

I take the strawberry from Kiera, "Let's see what happens." and I toss the strawberry towards the invisible barrier. We watch the strawberry go forward and as it reaches the barrier it disappears much like stepping through a door.

"I would recommend not trying and to walk through that barrier till we know more about it. I would say that we should not move anymore to the left and right either, since we do not know where the barrier is."

"But the other are probably past that barrier, shouldn't we go see where they went."

"We don't know if our captors are on the other side or if something else is there, so I would be cautious before making that or any choice."

"What more can we do from here?"

I think for a few moments about our current predicament and then ask Kiera, "Do we still have any carrots left?"

"Yes, we do. Here you go." as Kiera hands me a carrot.

I take the carrot and carefully reach forward with it, holding like a stick from the very end. As I push it forward through the air it starts to disappear into thin air. As it approaches halfway gone I try to pull it back but it will not pull back. It is as though it is stuck in a rock.

"What is happening?"

"I can't pull the carrot back. Something is not letting it come back." I pull harder on the carrot and it breaks off and the rest falls away and is gone past the barrier. "I am convinced we should not step through now."

"Then what should we do?"

"Let me see if my suit can access the frequency the barrier is operating at and I may be able to see through it. You may want to take a few steps back and sit down. This may take a few moments." It takes the suit a few minutes to figure out the frequency because it is operating on two different ones. I can only disrupt a small part of the barrier, but I see enough. I turn around and walk towards Kiera, "We are not getting out that way, we should head back to the settlement."

"Did you see something? Was there anyone out there?"

"Past the barrier there is nothing but snow and ice."

"Did you see anything else."

I am reluctant to tell Kiera, but she should know. "It looks like the others from the settlement were trying to get back in, and they froze to death in the snow."

"That is horrible. I wish they were imprisoned somewhere else now, rather than that."

"I think we are imprisoned. I believe are captors hope we kill ourselves by walking past the barrier. It seems to be one way. You can pass through to the outside with no resistance, but nothing outside can come inside the barrier."

"That is awful, who would devise such a terrible prison?"

"I don't know who, but we are going to have to investigate the storeroom further."

"If supplies can move back and forth in there then why can't we?"

"We should head back to the settlement."

We pick up are supplies and head back to the previous marker and journey back. We have to stop part way back as it gets to dark to see the markers and we camp outside for a second night. We are sleeping on nothing more than a comforter on the ground. We end up sleeping right next to each other to conserve heat. We are essentially spooning out on the ground.

I wake up with a warm body at my back which actually feels nice compared to the hard ground that we slept on. We eat some food for breakfast, then pack up and head on home. We make it home by midday. Sleeping on the ground was exhausting, so we just pick some items for dinner, and take a hot shower to clean up. We eat and talk some more about what we should do next and then head to bed early to catch up on sleep. We have plans to make in the morning.


	21. Breaking Through the Room

I wake up the next morning to Kiera crying in the bed. I sit up and pull her over and hold her.

"I know they were your family. I am sorry that they went that way, but we need to focus now on other ways out of here."

"But could they not have gone somewhere else."

" I don't think we are near anyone or anywhere else. There are some very interesting things about this place. For one, the lake being so cold and never warming up. There is also the lack of any real vegetation other than grass. Did you find it odd that there are no trees here?"

"I did, but we could not really come up with an answer."

"All the evidence appears to point to us being on a frozen land mass. The temperature is being regulated within the area that we are being held."

"How can anyone do that?"

"Technology from my time could have done some of this, but some of this is beyond any technology I have seen. This prison looks to have been specifically created by someone to hold people without having to answer to anyone on what happens here and they don't need any guards to police the residents."

"That would explain the lack of other people other than us within this settlement."

"Whoever is putting people here seems to want to remove people from society, but is not callous enough or willing to just kill them."

"What can do now?"

"The only variable here is the storeroom. We are going to have to concentrate on figuring a way to use it for us."

"What can you do that we have not tried?"

"I may have a trick or two up my sleeve. Why don't we get out of here and go for a jog. I need to think about our options some more before we try anything."

"That sounds like an excellent idea."

So we get changed and head outside for a jog around the lake. It has been a great activity to get my heart going as well as get my mind thinking about solutions to our problem. When we finish, we head back to the house for a shower and then we sit down for breakfast.

"I believe that I may have a way to go where the storeroom is be being transported."

"What do you have in mind?"

"With my suit, I am able to make myself invisible to human eyes, but I am uncertain how they monitor the room and are able to know when people in the settlement are not inside."

"What can I do to help?"

"You will go to the storeroom and pick up some supplies. I will follow you over and in while invisible, and you will leave. I will wait in the room and see what happens."

"How will you get back if it works?"

"We know that the room is restocked when items are removed from it. It is probably done once a day. So if I can't get back here on my own. You should remove more items tomorrow so that the room is restocked again, and I will hopefully be in the room when it returns."

"I sounds very risky, but there does not seem to be any other way out of here."

"It is very risky and if these are the same agents that attacked and captured me, they had the ability to see through the cloaking ability of my suit. So I will need to stay out of view of people while moving around, since I don't quite know how they could see me."

"I will do my part from this side and I hope you can find a way to save us." and Kiera comes around hugs me.

"I don't think there is much reason to delay," and I go retrieve my suit and put it on. "This is hopefully not goodbye, and I will be back soon." Kiera and I hug for one long moment as we have grown close to each other over the past few weeks and this just may be the last we see each other. When we are done with our hug I activate the cloaking around myself and I am invisible.

Kiera makes her way to the storeroom and she grabs a few items and whispers "Good luck Kiera" as she walks out the door.

I am hunched next to some shelves for what seems like a few hours and then there is bright flash of light and it takes a few moments for my eyes adjust. I am not in the storeroom any more.


	22. Behind Enemy Lines

The shelves are behind me and in front of me, but when I look to the left and the right the walls are gone. I am now in a much larger room. There are computer consoles on one side of the room and large metallic black boxes on the other side.

I hear someone moving on the far side of the room. I stay hidden behind the shelves, in case the person can see me even though my suit should make me invisible. The person looks to be a uniformed technician, likely they are just responsible for swapping the contents of the storeroom . The person looks over the monitors for a moment and then leaves the room.

After a moment I decide the room is clear and start to investigate the room that I am in. I investigate the areas not near the door in case shows up and I need to move out of sight quickly. I check the black boxes on the one side and as I near them I hear a electrical hum of transformers gathering power. There are rows and rows of power supplies. There is more power being collected here than I have ever seen being stored in one spot.

The next wall is filled mostly with containers. I open the top boxes and they seem to be filled with the same items that are on the shelves of the storeroom. Along the other two walls are computer consoles. I look them over but I was never the technology savvy person. I was great at operating and using the technology, but there was always someone else to guide me along the way.

I move from screen to screen and look for anything I may understand or that may be able to help us. There is not much I can understand from the screens. Most of it is just coding in some sort of computer language. I make it to the computer that the tech was looking at and it is one of the few not in a computer language. It seems as though they can't or are unable to scan for life signs. The transport seems to work only on mass. That may explain why the people sleeping in the storeroom were never transported back, the mass was kept at a certain level and if it was greater, then the transport would not engage. If I can get back to Kiera, we may be able to use that to our advantage.

Unfortunately, it seems as though this room is designed to only move between this place and the storeroom where I came from. I will have to find the room I transported from if this is even the same building. I crack the door open. The hallway is empty. Even though I am invisible to most people, I am still worried about those who might be able to see me, so I move quickly down the hallway. I find a door into a stairwell. It should be considerably safer to move from floor to floor as most people would take an elevator versus the stairs.

I remember moving up in the elevator before stopping at the final floor I was on, so I start going up the stairs and peak out into the hallway on each floor. The hallway I was in was very distinctive in that there was only one door at the end of the hallway. After nine doors, I finally find what I am looking for. It is a clean white hallway, and when I peak around the corner a little further, there is a single door at the end of the hallway.

Just then someone comes out of the elevator ahead of me. They don't notice me. They proceed in the other direction towards the door.

I carefully enter the hallway and close the stairway door. I catch up to the person as they make it to the door. He pulls a key card from his jacket pocket and swipes it at a keypad next to the door. The door makes a sound as though it unlocked and the man pushes the door open. I follow close behind, and quickly access whether we are alone. As soon as I am sure we are alone, I hit him hard in the back of the head with the butt of my weapon and he slumps to the ground.

I pull the unconscious body into the room. I slip the keycard into a pocket in my suit. The sphere that transported me is sitting mounted on a cylinder. There seems to be only one computer operating the system here. There looks to only be numerical setting on the system. I assume they are to choose a year to go to, but for some reason the system will only go to twenty-four. What does this mean?

After thinking about it for a few moments, I think back to my first time here and the box I found my uniform in. It was labeled "Cameron, Kiera 00013". Maybe I am from "#13", but where are the other twenty-three numbers going to? But do I have much of a choice at this point? Stay here, or go there, or go back to where Kiera is and stay there? None of the options seem to be that good but I need to do something.

All that running is finally going to pay off. I pick the unconscious body and get it over my shoulder. This is not going to be an easy task. The body must weight slightly more than me. I am using the wall for support as I move towards the stairwell. When I get there I drop the body off my shoulder and it is a great relief. I got to the stairwell unnoticed with the body and that I have all that weight off my shoulder. I grab the unconscious body by the arms and start to drag it down the stairs. It takes a while, but I finally am down the nine floors.

I open the door slowly, there is no one there. I leave the body in the stairwell till I am sure I can move the body. I head down the hallway, and suddenly someone exits a room nearby. Before I can move anywhere, the person passes me by. It seems to be another technician with no special abilities to see me. The tech walks down the hall and enters into the room I was returning to. I quickly follow through the closing door behind the tech.

I follow the tech around as he check the shelves of the storeroom, and makes some adjustments. He goes to the boxes to retrieve some items to replace what Kiera had taken out. After that he goes back to the computer at the front of the room and I watch carefully as he check some numbers on the screen. The numbers seem to correspond to mass measurements and transformer power which is at 100%. The tech looks to be finishing up and is about to run a program on the computer. Before that can happen, I pull out my weapon and incapacitate him in a similar manner.

I drag the body over to the aisles of the storeroom. I take the uniform off the worker and put them on. I don't want to leave the other body in the stairwell much longer, so I go and retrieve it. Since this person was a technician, and they were stocking shelves, there should be something to move large containers. I go down the hall and enter the room the technician had came from. I looks to be a supply room. There is a cart in the center of the aisle. I grab the cart and exit into the hallway. Someone walks by but does not give me any notice. The technicians must just do a duty and that is it. So I can move somewhat freely in the uniform.

I take the cart to the stairwell and push is in. I lug the body onto the cart. I look in the hallway and make sure it is clear. It is and I waste no time pulling the cart into the hallway and getting the body to the transport room.

I deposit the body into another aisle in the storeroom area. I quickly go find the biggest and heaviest cans on the shelves and start rolling them out of the storeroom are to the edge of the room. I take off the uniform and fold it quickly and leave it sitting on the chest of one of the bodies.

I go to the monitors, and the numbers are just about where they were when the tech set the program up. I start the program.

I whisper to myself, "I hope Kiera understands my message."


	23. A Plan Unseen

I engage a program on the computer and there is a large flash of light and as my eyes re-adjust I see the storeroom shelves are still in front of me. I go to check on the two bodies I left in the aisle and they are gone. I go back and check the computer monitor to see if I can run the program again, but it does not look to be ready to run. It looks as though a power meter is building up. All the power in the transformers must be used to move the room between places, and needs to rebuild up stored power to do the transfer again. It looks like it will take some time for the energy to be built up.

I turn the cloak on my suit back on and head back down the hallway to the storage room that the technician came from. I want to see if I can find another spare uniform in the room. The room is quite large now that I have a little more time to look around. The shelves seem to be filled just as I saw the first time with supplies just for the storeroom, but there three lockers in the back of the room. They look to be employee lockers. I open each one up, and the second has a uniform hanging inside that looks to have been worn.

I put on the uniform. It fits somewhat loosely but it will serve its purpose. But then a new plan comes to mind. I take off the uniform and hang it back up. Three lockers means that there must three people working this job. I wait in the room till the next person shows up. After a few hours someone finally comes into the room and proceeds to the back of the room where the lockers are located. She changes into the uniform in the locker and puts a few personal items into the locker.

She then exits the room and I follow quickly behind. She proceeds directly to the transport room with the storeroom. I follow her in, but there is someone else in there, and I quickly duck down to avoid detection.

The other person is in a suit and looks to be in charge. "The previous tech did not log out of the building earlier today."

"Maybe he's sleeping again in the break room"

"I have already looked there. I will wait here till he returns"

"Well I have a job to do. You're welcome to wait as long as you like."

Oh great, this will complicate matters. I will need to figure out what to do about this agent. While they are talking I slip around the edge of the room to the storeroom area. The tech makes her way around the aisles making note of what needs to be replaced and goes to the storage containers to retrieve some items to replenish the shelves again. I lay in wait at the furthest shelf from the agent where something was missing. When she come to the aisle with the replacement, I hit her with my weapon while she is bent over and then falls the rest of the way to the ground.

The agent has heard the fall. "Rogers, are you OK?"

No Response comes.

"Rogers"

I hide out of view of the tech. The agent comes around the corner to the tech laying on the ground. I come around the corner to incapacitate the agent. "Kiera Cameron, we have been trying to find you for weeks."

Oh Shit he can see me. I pull out my gun and fire. The agent has some sort of dampening field and my gun does not fire. I quickly move towards the agent and try and take him down. I can't afford him warning more people of my presence. He is a trained fighter, but so am I. The last time I was outnumbered and worn out. This time I am on equal footing. "You found me. Come and get me!" and I dive at the agent and take him to the ground.

I overcompensated as the agent rolls me off and I land on my back and get the wind knocked out of me. He is quickly on top of me and trying to roll me over onto my back to tie off my arms. Before that happens, I plant my knee in his groin and he goes down. Before he has a chance to respond I grab him by the head and slam it into the ground. It is does not knock him out. He starts to rise up slowly. I grab a large can of food next to me and bring it down on his head and that seems to have slowed him down even more.

I waste no time and run back to the console, it is showing 100% power and I reach down to hit engage. The agent comes stumbling around the corner of the row, stumbling and holding onto a shelf for some support. "Stop, don't do that. You don't know what you are doing."

"But I do!" and I hit the engage button on the screen and there is large flash of light.

"Kiera, are you there?"

"Yes, I am here." Kiera comes out from behind the shelves wearing the tech uniform that I had left her.

"I never thought I would see any where else ever again. But where are we?"

"I haven't quite figured that out myself. However, I do not have plans to return back there anytime soon." I pull out my weapon and fire an electric pulse at the computer console which shorts it out. I go back a fire a blast at several transformers which causes them to arc and to catch fire.

"Why did you do that? Someone is going to notice that."

"I hope they do. We need to move."


	24. Forward Traveling

"Where are we going to go?"

"I hope to home, if I am right."

"You found a way home."

"I am not sure but we don't have many options and we can't take on many of their agents in such close quarters. They are well trained in combat and they can neutralize my suit in our encounters"

"So some stealth"

"Or we can blend in, that's why you are in those clothes. I see my message was received."

"Yes, I dragged the two into the next house and tied them to some chairs."

"I sent them two more of their friends on the second trip. Let's get out of here before a fire alarm is tripped."

"If we pass anyone in the hall follow my lead. We look like we work here and they don't seem to give much attention to the technicians."

We walk out the door and several men who looked like they may be firemen came out of the stairwell. As they come quickly down the hall, I move us forward and through the door to the storage room.

"Is this the stuff we had in the storeroom"

"Yes, it is."

"Give me a moment to grab a few items."

After a few seconds I opened the door and we move to the stairwell. They must be handling this internally, as there are no alarms.

"We need to head up nine flights of stairs."

"Running finally comes in handy."

"I said the same thing earlier to myself"

When we get to the floor, I peak out the door and it is clear. We move out the door and into the hallway. We pass the elevator and a second later the doors slide open. Two agents step out.

"Kiera Cameron, you have been causing a lot of problems for us. It is time for you to return to your cell."

"I have no plans to return anywhere with you." and I rush at the first agent and push him into the second and they fall backwards into the elevator.

"We need to get to the room at the end of the hall."

"This may help us" and Kiera tears open some boxes of pasta and spreads them across the floor.

The elevator door opens up and the agents emerge for a second time.

"Kiera, run to the room now" and we take off for the room. There is a crunching sound behind us and then there is a thud as one of the agents slips and falls. Kiera's plan may give us the seconds we need.

Kiera is in front of me and gets to the door. "The door is locked what do we do" and I remember the keycard. I unzip my suit and quickly hand the card to Kiera while keeping an eye on the approaching agents. I hear the door unlock. "Let's go, the door is unlocked."

"Go Kiera" and I pull out my weapon and slam the butt of the weapon on the keycard scanner cracking the display. "That should slow them down."

As I pull the door closed, one of the agents grabs the door to pull it open. Kiera grabs the nearest thing she can grab and swings at the agent coming in. Once it makes contact, I realize it is a keyboard. We are going to need that so I drop kick him in the chest and he goes flying back. I yank the keyboard back into the room by the cord and slam the door closed.

"Kiera, we need to find the plug for this keyboard now. We need it to activate the sphere and get out of here." We find the keyboard outlet after a few seconds and the agents are pounding on the door and yelling at us. It sounds like more have arrived.

"Where are we going?"

"The computer has twenty-four locations set into it from what I was able to figure out. I am going out on a limb and going to '13' as my uniform was in a box labeled '13'."

"What if you are wrong?"

"I have no idea, but it is our best option"

"I hope we are not going back to where we came from." I set the computer to thirteen. The door unlocks, they must have bypassed the broken keypad. "Kiera, get to the sphere."

The agents rushes into the room as I just initiated the program "You will never get back to your world!"

Our time is up. In a moment we will find out what my choice has gotten us into.

I touch the sphere with Kiera and there is a flash.

The good news is we not free falling into a lake.


	25. Out of the Fire

We are not in the same room anymore. However, the room is full of technology just like the room that we were in just a moment ago. We look around quickly to make sure we are alone, the room is empty. It seems as though the room is not being used right now. After looking around the room for some details. I notice some of the equipment is labeled "SadTech".

"Kiera, I think we made it back home."

"How can you be so sure?"

"SadTech was behind the my kidnapping, or at least I was attacked within a SadTech facility."

"Will they not come back looking for you?"

"I suspect they will, but I know they are out there and will be on the lookout. Let me see if I can contact Alec through my tech."

"Who is Alec?"

"That is a rather complicated thing to explain, but he helps me with the running of my tech in this time." I try to make contact through my tech, but there is no response. "They may have jamming technology within the building."

"Then we need to get out of here." and Kiera moves towards the door.

"Kiera, wait! We should go prepared. They are likely blocking my technology throughout the building. We need more low-tech defenses."

I grab a chair to break the metal poles off of what is likely an important part of the transport device for the sphere. "I think these may do the job." Kiera takes one of the metal poles and moves towards the door. "Wait a moment Kiera. Stay behind the door while I open the door and take a look."

"OK, let's try your plan." as she smiles knowingly at me.

I open the door and there is no one there. I start down the hallway and soon two men exit the elevator and immediately start walking straight at me. I turn around and start walking quickly back to the room. "Kiera Cameron, it will be easier if you don't resist." I run into the room and the two men follow quickly behind and as soon as they both enter Kiera hits the second square on the back of the head and he falls to the ground. The first man turns, "How did you..." and I clock him in the head with my pole.

I grab the sphere from the perch that it was sitting on. "We do not have time to mess with them. We need to move." I grab a chair and drag it out with us.

"What do you have in mind?"

"I think we are going to need some deception to get out of here." We rush down the hallway and hit the buttons to call the elevator. The doors open immediately. I place the chair in the threshold after we have stepped into the elevator. "We need to get through the hatch to the top of the elevator. I hope that they will believe that we blocked the elevator to slow them down. They will have to use the stairs to find us."

"And to come up here to unblock the elevator so they can get control of it back."

"Yes." We both are on top of the elevator and seated. It takes several minutes before anything happens. It seems like an eternity. There is the silence of just waiting there and both of our hearts are beating hard in our chests with the anticipation to what may come. Finally we hear talking below us.

"The elevator was blocked but it is operational now. Keep searching for them, they have not left the building. Recall the elevator, I do not want them to be able to use it. I will keep searching this floor." and his voice trails off and I hear the door slide shut. The elevator starts moving down and finally comes to a stop. The door opens to silence and closes back up.

"Wait here while I check the door. " I climb down and try the open door button. I does not work. I try all the buttons and there is no response. "Kiera, do you see an emergency lever for the door up there."

"Let me see." After a moment, I hear a click and a sliding noise. "How about now?" I try the door. They move with a little force.

"I think you did it." I get the door partly open and then use the metal rod to pry the door open the rest of the way. I expect to face some resistance from forces in the lobby of this building. But it looks like we are in the basement. "Kiera, you can come on down."

"We must have been taken to the basement."

"But this is not the lowest floor."

"What do you mean?"

"This building has a parking structure built under it."

"How do we get there?"

"By some stairs that are hopefully nearby." We find the stairs but they only go up. "We will need to find another way." and then I see the solution. I head over to a hatch.

"What is that?"

"That is the door for the trash disposal in the building. It will go to somewhere in the parking structure. I'll go first." and I pull myself up and down I go. I drop about a floor and a half and land with a thud on a pile of bags. I try and move out of the way, but just barely get out of the way of the chute when I hear Kiera falling. She comes shooting out of the ceiling.

"This smell is awful." and she tries to stand up in the trash.

"Let's see how we will get out of here." and just then my tech comes alive.


	26. Apprehension

"The garage must not be within the dampening field that SadTech is employing. My suit is rebooting itself and should be operational momentarily."

"We should look for a way out of here."

"We can use of these vehicles to escape the garage. Let's find one that we can use."

"How about that large vehicle." as Kiera points towards a sport utility vehicle.

"No, those are two easy to track. They have computers and can be shut down remotely. No that car over there will be perfect." as I point towards an old Chevy Nova. No computers to shut down and plenty of power to get us out if here."

"Oh I get it, less computers is good."

"Exactly!" as we move towards the car looking to see if anyone is coming.

"How do we get in the car?"

"What's great about these older cars is that the owners usually don't lock them up all the time. So we will try the doors." They are locked.

"Now what"

I pull out my weapon and shoot out the back seat window and reach around and unlock the front door. I slide into the driver's seat and unlock the passenger door. My suit is up and running, just in time as I request ways to start this car. A simple electrical charge through the starter accomplishes the task. But our ruckus has attracted attention. As a group of men come running around the corner of the garage. I throw the car in reverse and spin the car out backwards of the parking space. I then flip the gear into drive and hammer the gas pedal and quickly accelerate. We spin around two floors and the exit appears. A chain link security fence is lowering. "Hold on Kiera. You may want to slide down in the seat." as I push the gas pedal to the floor and the car is practically flying up the ramp. The gate scrapes the roof of the car as we crash through the gate.

"Look out for the truck" as Kiera looks up over the dashboard getting back up and into the seat. We make a hard right turn into traffic and take off.

I try and contact Alec through my communications, "Alec, are you out there. Please be there."

"Kiera, is that you?"

"Yes, Alec, it is me, where are you?"

"That would be easier to discuss later, me at my lab at my parent's farm."

"So you soon."

I use my tech to access a direct route to the farm from where we are. After we travel several blocks, I notice some dark tinted windowed vehicles have been following a few car behind us for several blocks. "Kiera, we are going to have to make a car change, but we are going to need to lose our tail."

"Our tail?"

"Yes, I believe agents from SadTech are behind us right now. We are a few block away from the hub for the subway system. We should be able to lose them there. As we near as busy intersection, I speed up and dash through the light leaving my trackers behind me. After a block I turn the corner and double back around the block and pull into a garage un-noticed.

"What are we doing here?" Kiera asks somewhat puzzled.

"Ditching the car, and going to the subway station outside the garage." We head out to the street and down to the subway. We take the train to the next station which was the hub and change over to a car that will get us closest to Alec. We get there with no sign of anybody following us.

Once at the end of our train ride, we are on the edge of the city. I find the secure credit I had set up is still in place and I use it to rent a car, and we head to the farm. When we get there we head straight to the barn.

Alec gets up to hug me, "Kiera, where have you been? I lost contact with you a while ago."

"How long have I been gone?"

"Almost a year."

"How is that possible, I am sure it has only been a few weeks."

"I'm not sure but after you disappeared I stopped working for SadTech. They were hiding too much from me. But who is this you brought with you? Is she your sister?"

"I am not sure . We were trapped somewhere else. I am not sure where we were. But Kiera was there when I arrived."

"Her name is Kiera and she looks so similar to you. There is definitely some going on here and it can't be good."

"That's why I came to you. You are most familiar with my tech and I brought this too." as I pull out the sphere I took from SadTech during our escape.

"I will need to run some tests on it."

"You work on that while I see if I can locate Kiera's family."


	27. Revelations

I make contact with some of my old associates and after a few moments of catching up, and some searches are performed, I find there is no record of Kiera existing. Kiera then offers to help out with the search.

"Let me check on a computer. I can help with the search." Kiera does some typing on the keyboard and starts to look puzzled.

"Is there something wrong?"

"None of this makes sense. I can't find any of the people I know on here. The information all seems wrong."

"What is wrong with it?"

"Some of these cities, I have never heard of them and some of these people that seem to be popular. I have never heard of them."

"But you did say you were gone for almost eight years in that other place that we escaped from. Maybe some things have changed while you were gone."

"People could have moved, but whole cities to be different. This is all so confusing."

Then Alec interjects, "The FreeLancers have been working with much more advanced technology. And I have just begun to scan the sphere but it is not the same as the one that brought Kiera back in time."

"Then what does this one do?" I ask.

"I am not sure yet, but it does not seem to move one through time, but rather it moves one from what we would call one reality to another."

Kiera looks puzzled, "You are saying I may not be home."

"That is very possible, but I need to figure out how to activate and control the device, before anyone actually uses it to go anywhere."

Then I add "When I was imprisoned..."

"You were captured?"

"Yes, but let me explain that to you later. When I was imprisoned, my suit was in a box labeled 'Cameron, Kiera 00013' and the computer I used to activate the sphere in their room had 1 through 24 as options."

"Then it is possible that there are twenty-four realities that the FreeLancers are accessing. But I will not be certain till I study the sphere some more. I always surmised from the other sphere that it may be possible to travel to alternative timelines, but I didn't think anyone had a means to travel to these realities."

"You also said I have been gone for a year, but it has only been two months for me. How is that possible?"

"If you were in another reality, time is relative and time could be moving slower there."

Kiera again is puzzled, "Then by that math I have been away from my home possibly for forty-eight years." and then she looks somewhat solemn.

"Possibly, but time may move differently in your reality too." as I comfort Kiera.

"Alec, what are our chances of being able to access these other realities."

"I don't know yet, but how do we know where you would be going and if it is safe to go there."

"Those are questions that we need to figure out before we use that sphere. The place we were at we do not want to return to."

"Then it may take some time to figure out how this device operates."

"Then we will need to find a safe place for Kiera to stay till she can go home. I will take care of that. The Freelancers will surely be looking for you. They must know you are gone from your prison, and it is only a matter of time till they figure out you came here with me."

"I won't feel safe till I get home."

"You won't be safe at home either till we can shut down the FreeLancers. If you can't defend yourself at home, they will just take you away again. And they may not be so nice the next time."

The End.

for now...

but Kiera and Kiera will be returning in an interlude story and then the adventure will continue as the fight with the FreeLancers escalates.

Actually very soon, since I started the follow-up.

Hope you enjoyed the story so far.


End file.
